{"id":7939,"date":"2022-10-05T10:56:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T14:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=7939"},"modified":"2022-10-05T10:56:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T14:56:40","slug":"tony-dungy-reflects-on-a-life-lived-for-god-not-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2022\/10\/tony-dungy-reflects-on-a-life-lived-for-god-not-football.html","title":{"rendered":"Tony Dungy Reflects on a Life Lived For God, Not Football"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jamie Lamor Thompson \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Former NFL head coach and outspoken Christian Tony Dungy recently spoke to \u201cThe High Note\u201d podcast<\/a> where he addressed how he turned his focus from football to something more. Now 66 years old, Dungy played football in the 70s for the University of Minnesota where he was nominated most valuable player in his position as quarterback in \u201975 and \u201976. He played undrafted for three seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a defensive back, intercepting six passes in \u201978 and winning a championship with the team in Super Bowl XIII. He would go on to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Indianapolis Colts. Since his retirement from coaching, Dungy has gone on to be a sports broadcaster and best-selling author.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite all that success, Dungy characterized how the most important lesson he learned during his time in football was putting God first. \u201cMy mom was a Sunday School teacher,\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd she always talked about, \u2018Hey, no matter what you do in life, you\u2019ve got to put the Lord first, you\u2019ve got to create that time for the Lord. You\u2019ve got to do things for Him.\u2019 And I heard it when I was a kid, but it didn\u2019t really register. My mom was telling me this the whole time, but it\u2019s going in one ear and out the other.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until after he joined the Steelers that his mother\u2019s words really began to stick. He credited head Buccaneers coach Chuck Noll with helping to change his mindset. \u201cI was 21 years old \u2026 and the first thing he said to us, he said, \u2018Men, I want to welcome you to the National Football League. You\u2019re now going to get paid to play football. So that makes it your profession. But don\u2019t make football your life. If you make football your whole life, you\u2019re gonna be disappointed. And I was like, \u2018Wow, are you kidding me?\u2019 Well, up to this point, it kind of [had] been my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

This conversation led to Dungy spending time with other Christian teammates. \u201cAnd they invited me to Bible studies, and they invited me to chapel, and for the first time, I really started reading the Bible, trying to get out of it what those guys got out of it,\u201d he said. Dungy cited his mother\u2019s favorite verse, Matthew 16:26, which says, \u201cWhat good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe High Note\u201d host Tauren Wells contrasted this mindset with the \u201cbravado culture\u201d of the NFL, where players feel the need to constantly build themselves up after a game. He quoted a line he had heard Dungy\u2019s mother say in regards to true accomplishment never needing to announce itself. Dungy agreed with Wells citing the Bible saying that one should \u201clet another man praise you.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have eternity in mind,\u201d Dungy said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just focus on the sport. And I learned that as a 21-year-old, and that\u2019s when I first started really carving out that time, going to chapels, going to players\u2019 Bible studies, and really trying to grow in my faith.\u201d Dungy has previously spoken about how his faith has played out in life, such as his commitment to helping others and by adoption. He and his wife Lauren have adopted<\/a> 8 children. \u201cWe just think that Christianity \u2013 people can say \u2018it\u2019s weird,\u2019 people can say it\u2019s different, but Jesus said, \u2018We go down a narrow road,\u2019 and the path is not the broad path that the whole world is on. So, we choose to look at that as not weird or different\u2026but, uncommon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Former NFL head coach and outspoken Christian Tony Dungy recently spoke to \u201cThe High Note\u201d podcast where he addressed how he turned his focus from football to something more. Now 66 years old, Dungy played football in the 70s for the University of Minnesota where he was nominated most valuable player in his position…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":7942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-messages"],"yoast_head":"\nTony Dungy Reflects on a Life Lived For God, Not Football<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tony Dungy appeared on the podcast, "The High Note," where he discussed his decision to live life for God, not football.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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